


En Route

by baar_ur



Series: Trouble and Honor [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Oh no there's only one bed, Pre-Relationship, Romantic Friendship, references to sex and murder and shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-22 23:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16607525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baar_ur/pseuds/baar_ur
Summary: Snapshots of the trip to Coruscant from Ord Mantell. Featuring a re-written section from Sly as a Fox.





	En Route

The Ord Mantell orbital station is no Carrick Station, but it’s not too bad, either. The main level is a large enough loop that Krenth gets a good chance to stretch her legs after the shuttle ride from Fort Garnik, and there’s more than a few interesting little shops and tapcafs. Riggs pops in and out of them, picking up a few small items here and chatting with spacers he’s friendly with there, then jogging after Krenth to catch up before she gets too far ahead.

Her satchel bounces on her hip as she walks. It’s a constant, irritating reminder that everything she owns is either on her ship in the hands of a half-price grifter or in that bag. At least she’s still got a good stash of credits. One of Riggs’ contacts had coughed up almost fifty thousand for the stolen separatist shuttle, and she’s eighteen thousand up on the transport job that took her to Ord Mantell in the first place. Plus Syreena had saved them the trouble of buying passenger tickets to Coruscant. She hadn’t saved them much other trouble, so it seems fair.

“Picked this up for ya,” Corso says, interrupting her train of thought. The item he offers her looks like a hard-sided briefcase, but Krenth recognizes it as a different version of the same armory locker Riggs uses. It’s smaller than his, better suited for her paired blasters than the large rifle and assortment of pistols he carries, and from the weight of it, there’s already a maintenance kit tucked inside. She wonders if he’d caught her eyeing his locker with a little bit of envy.

“How much was it?” she asks, reaching for her wallet.

“Not that much,” he says, although it’s almost certainly a lie. “You don’t need to pay me back, Captain. Buy dinner an’ we’ll call it even.”

“Don’t you go thinking it’s a date, Corso Riggs.” Her tone is teasing, and he gives her a grin in return. “Got anywhere you’d suggest?”

“Haven’t been here too many times,” he admits, tucking his hands into his pockets. “But there’s a pretty good diner two spokes ahead.”

“Diner, huh?” Krenth asks as they start walking. “Not ronto wraps again?”

“The places up here always ship in frozen meat, it’s never as good,” Corso says before he realizes she’s teasing again. “I - I mean-”

Krenth breaks the tension with a laugh. “Relax, Riggsy. If you know half as much about blasters as you do ‘bout where to eat, we’re in good hands.”

“Aww, Captain-” Riggs cuts himself off and blushes.

 

The _Savrip’s Sip_ is only a short walk away, and easily recognizable by the neon sign of a cheerful savrip holding a large mug. Krenth and Corso place their order at a counter - telter noodles for her, a zeldrate egg-salad sandwich for him - and he waits for the drinks while she goes to find a table.

“Our boarding time’s in an hour and a half,” she says when he comes to join her in the small booth, not looking up from the tickets as he sets down the two bottles in his hands.

“This’s the best feelin’ in the galaxy,” Riggs replies cheerfully.

Krenth looks up with a raised eyebrow. “What, sitting in a sticky tapcaf, waiting on somebody else t’ take you somewhere?”

“C’mon, Captain. Sky full of stars, a new planet waitin’ across the galaxy - it never gets old.”

She can’t help but smile. “I guess it doesn’t,” she agrees. “But if you’re this excited t’ be taking some crummy passenger cruiser somewhere, you ain’t been doing this long.” She shakes her head. “Once you meet enough people, land enough planets, you start t’ realize there ain’t a lot out there that’s new.”

“Don’t you try and go all cynical on me,” Corso orders teasingly. “I know you feel the same, or you wouldn’t be in the business you are.”

“All right,” she agrees with a laugh. “What you said ‘bout a sky full of stars - that’s what I love. The freedom. The possibilities.”

“Me, too.” He sighs, looking down at his hands. “When I came back to Ord Mantell, I thought that was the end for me. Thanks for givin’ me a way out.”

“It was all your idea, Riggs. But I’m damn glad t’ have you along for the ride. Next time we meet Skavak, he won’t know what hit him.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Corso says, raising his bottle. Krenth does the same, tapping her drink against his before she takes a sip.

 

The passenger cruiser _Lady of Lorrd_ is on the small side, capable of carrying three and a half thousand passengers in varying levels of comfort with two hundred crew and nearly three hundred service droids. That’s what the brochure says, at least. The judgement of it being on the small side is Krenth’s - the few times she’s been on passenger cruisers, they’ve been in the ten-thousand-plus range, the kind that are basically hyperspace-capable casino hotels. Taking one of those was one of Jace’s favorite tricks; a week or more in close contact with thousands upon thousands of lazy rich _koochoo_ bastards, and they’d pull in fifteen or twenty times more than they paid for the tickets.

She’s linked the ticket to one of the three false identities she’s got on hand, so the boarding droid greets her as Ms. Hoska Glost, takes their ticket, and gives directions to their room. They’re in second class, but on the upper tier. The room has an attached fresher, a console to contact the ship’s droids, and exactly one bed.

Krenth puts down her new armory locker with a sigh and unslings her satchel to toss it onto the bed. She really should’ve seen this coming.

“Guess I’ll be sleepin’ on the couch,” Corso says, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Riggsy, neither one of us is gonna fit on that thing,” Krenth replies. The more she looks around, the more she’s convinced Syreena booked a cheap honeymoon suite. The couch is made for two - the only way she’d be able to sleep on it would be in a fetal position, and Riggs would have better luck trying to sleep in a plant pot. “C’mon. Plenty of room, and you don’t snore too bad.”

“I don’t snore!” he says, any doubts regarding propriety apparently forgotten in the mild insult.

“Sorry t’ be the one t’ break it t’ you, farm boy, but you sure do.”

Corso hitches his bag higher on his shoulder before he steps toward Krenth. “Are you sure ‘bout this, Captain?” he asks. “I don’t wanna… crowd you or nothin’.”

It’s almost too easy to understand what he means, and yet Krenth can’t tell him the whole truth. She feels like they’ve been building up to something like this through the week she spent on Ord Mantell, and she wants to prove to herself that she can trust him as much as she feels like she can. Instead she smiles and teases him: “You keep your hands t’ yourself and it’ll all go fine.”

He returns her smile, apparently accepting the half-truth. “Well, if you’re sure, Captain.”

“Sure as I ever am,” she says, which is really not an answer at all.

 

The trip grows tedious with dangerous speed. It’s tempting to spend too much time in the cruiser’s fake little cantina, decorated to make everyday folk feel like they’re on an adventure with real spacers. But Krenth’s seen too many blaster-proof spacers and fine pilots turn to drink and end up ruined. She and Riggs mostly keep to themselves; the other passengers are either from further up the Celanon Spur, like Ithor and Cademimu, or refugees from Mantell.

She’s already taken him through the more advanced strategies of sabaac that he didn’t grasp before, and is teaching him to cheat by the time they’re halfway through the trip. They’re sitting across from each other in the cabin’s two chairs with Corso dealing onto the caf table when he speaks unexpectedly.

“Can I ask you somethin’, Captain?” he asks, pausing in his dealing.

“‘Course you can,” Krenth replies distractedly. If she can get one more Commander, she’ll have a damn good hand…

Riggs bounces his leg nervously. “Are you… d’ you like men or women?”

“I’m gonna guess you’re not asking if I like ‘em as people,” she says with a sigh. She sets down her cards. “For fuckin’? I dunno.”

Corso is already blushing. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I mean, if it comes down t’ it, I prefer men. But the fuckin’ itself, I’m not much interested in.” She can’t help crossing her arms. It’s a defensive posture, but she’s feeling defensive. “It’s just… messy, physically and emotionally. And I’ve never got much out of it. Most of the time, it’s a pain, and after, they think they own you.”

“I don’t wanna say you ain’t been doin’ it right, Captain, but-” Corso shakes his head. “Sounds like you’ve had some shit partners.”

“Can’t say you’re wrong on that count.” Who has there been, since Jace? That damn pirate on Alsakan. He’d been handsome and good with his hands, but he pushed her so fast she’d been left wondering if she’d really wanted it. That burly Twi’lek who’d talked her into coming back to his place on Kashyyk Orbital. He went slower and gentler, and yet she left him in the middle of the night without feeling anything. The mud-jumper bounty hunter on Mimban - he’d tasted like earth when she kissed him, and left her two hundred credits that she’d tossed into a native’s begging bowl. No one else, unless the Zeltron dancer that kissed her at Sorrik’s place last year counts.

“I’ll treat you better,” Corso says softly, almost to himself.

It’s all she can do not to flinch. “Don’t you go forgetting yourself now, Riggs. You think that’s why I hired you on, you oughta think again.”

“No, Captain!” he says quickly. “I didn’t - I mean, unless you say you want me to, I won’t treat you as anybody but my commander or any way but with respect.” He shakes his head. “I’m old-fashioned, I guess. I won’t try courtin’ you ‘til you say you’re all right with it. If that’s never, then that’s never. But I sure would like the chance one day.”

“Courting?” Krenth replies. “And what’s that when ya call it by name?”

Riggs’ blush returns. “Flowers an’ little presents an’ stuff, I guess you could say. Writin’ letters if you’re apart, just talkin’ if you’re not. Goin’ slow.”

“That sounds…” She can’t put into words how it sounds to her: like a relief, like something soft after years of things being hard enough to break bone. “Sounds nice. I’m not telling you t’ get started on it, but I’ll think about it.”

“That’s-” Corso breaks into a broad grin. “That’s more than I was even askin’ for, Captain.”

Krenth picks up her sabaac hand and returns Corso’s smile over the cards. He’s dealt her just what she wanted.

 

It seems like forever before it’s time to pack up for arrival at Carrick Station. Krenth’s already packed her things and gulped down her ration - no flavor, no texture, no point lingering - and is fiddling with the cheap desh-tin box that came in the ration pack.

“You mind if I look at your stuff?” she asks.

Corso’s still eating his breakfast ration and has to finish chewing before he asks, “How come?”

“Good t’ have an inventory of what we’ve got on hand,” she says, balancing the tin between her fingers and spinning it. “We’re gonna need supplies when we reach Coruscant. I might be able t’ scrounge up some before we get there.”

“Yeah, go ahead.” Riggs takes another bite as she drags his half-size duffel out from under the bed. “Don’t look at my datapad, though.”

“Why, you int’ weird porn?”

From the sound of it, Corso nearly chokes at the question. “No!” he protests. “All I’ve got on it is blaster maintenance and mechanic magazines. ‘s almost as bad.”

Krenth plops down on the floor with the bag between her legs and pops open the fasteners. Clothes, mostly, packed with near-military efficiency. His blaster repair kit is tucked in among them, carefully padded. She opens it for a quick inventory - running low on conductive flux, it looks like - and sets it aside. “Shit, Riggs, is this what you keep your credits in?” she asks as she pulls out a worn leatheris wallet. “Ain’t you ever been t’ a big city?”

“What’s wrong with it?” he says defensively.

“You’re gonna get robbed blind, is what. Most gangs don’t do anything as crude as taking your chits, they just use data-skimmers t’ steal the identifiers and transfer all your cash.” Krenth reaches up to grab the tin off the table behind her. “This’ll do you for a little while, but we’ll have t’ see about getting you something better.”

“What else d’ you wanna pick up before we hit Coruscant?” Corso asks as Krenth starts transferring the contents of his wallet to the tin.

“Got a friend on Carrick who can get us both a few fake IDs. Other than that, a couple of data encrypters for our comms, a few slicer’s spikes t’ replace the ones I lost on Mantell. Maybe a good demolitions kit, if I can get my hands on one.”

“That’s a lot of illegal stuff, Captain,” Riggs comments.

“That’s what the fake identities are for.” Krenth winks at him, and he blushes. As he looks away, the texture of something other than a plast-and-circuit credit chit or identity card slips between Krenth’s fingers.

She finds a holo-pict in her hand, small enough to hide in her palm, and worn to static around the edges. There are four people in the picture, and what she can only guess are Ord Mantell’s plains in the background. Corso’s not much older than sixteen, his hair cut short against his head. The girl must be his sister - she looks like him, though without the broken and badly healed nose. His mother is smiling. Krenth wonders if Riggs got his gentle nature from her. His father is serious, one arm around his wife and his other hand on his son’s shoulder.

She should put it away, tuck it into Riggs’ new wallet and pretend she didn’t see it. She doesn’t. She studies it, moving her fingers over the image as though she can touch the light projection. It gives her a strange, empty feeling in her stomach. She never had a pict like this - not of her parents, not of Onith or Enth, not of the Evocii that fed and sheltered them. She never had a family like this.

“Her name was Rya,” Corso says, and Krenth looks up from tracing the line of his sister’s cheek. “I was always her hero, ever since I kept the rontos from runnin’ her down when she was little. She wanted to go into the Peace Brigade like me, but Dad wasn’t real sure about it. She was still too young to join when…”

“What about your parents?”

“Mom’s name was Giry. Dad used to call her his nova lily. She was… more worldly than the rest of us. She worked in Worlport before she met Dad. He was Tanis - Mom’d call him Tanni when she wanted to tease him.” Corso smiles faintly. “They got on so well. Some mornin’s, I’d watch ‘em in the kitchen together and just wish I’d be as happy with somebody someday as they were with each other.”

Krenth holds the pict out to him. “I shouldn’t’ve… I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he says as he takes it and tucks it into the breast pocket of his shirt. “I haven’t talked about my family in… almost four years now. It doesn’t-” He takes a breath. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.”

“I had a sister,” Krenth says, and startles herself with the words. “A big sister. Onith. We - when she was ten and I was eight - we were on our own after that. She took care of me. When I was about fifteen, she got sick, bad. I stole some medicine for her. I got beat for it, worse’n anything I’d ever… But she got better.”

“That was a brave thing to do,” Corso murmurs.

“I had a little sister, too. Enth. She was-” Krenth shakes her head. “She was the prettiest little thing you ever saw. Somebody took her one day, an’... we never saw her again.”

Riggs doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, but he holds out a hand as Krenth moves to stand. She takes it and lets him pull her to her feet. He doesn’t let go of her hand - instead he holds it carefully as he says, “Thank you for tellin’ me about your family, Captain.”

“Thank you for telling me about yours, Corso,” she replies quietly, and then it is time to go.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering: yes, that pirate was Andronikos Revel. You can follow me on Tumblr at baar-ur.tumblr.com for more about Krenth and previews of future stories.


End file.
